1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an integrated management system and method for molten aluminum, and more particularly, to an integrated management system and method for molten aluminum that can integrally manage processes of carrying and supplying molten alloy, produced from raw material in a plant, into a casting process using a ladle having excellent heat-retention characteristics without requiring the molten alloy to be manufactured into an ingot.
2. Description of Related Art
Recently, with the onset of problems related to industrialization, such as soaring oil prices, environmental pollution, and global warming, the motorcar industry, fingered as a key source of these problems, is endeavoring to overcome such global problems. As the most fundamental and effective approach, improving fuel efficiency by decreasing the weight of vehicles is gaining attention.
Thus, lightweight materials are rising as the most efficient technology for solving both the problem of soaring oil prices and the problem of environmental pollution while improving the fuel efficiency of transporting vehicles. In particular, aluminum alloys are gathering popularity since they are lightweight materials that can reduce weight by about 50% or more when used to replace steel components.
To cast such aluminum alloys, a solid ingot is manufactured through melting, alloying, and molten aluminum treatment and is then delivered to a casting plant (e.g., for die casting). In the casting plant, the ingot is melted again in a quick-melting furnace, and is then carried to a heat-retaining furnace, where casting takes place.
When the ingot is delivered from an alloying plant, where alloys are manufactured from aluminum raw materials, to the casting plant, quality and production-related information is confirmed as written on a mill sheet since the ingot is generally manufactured in the alloying plant. Quality inspection in the casting plant determines the properties of the material by inspecting the exterior of the solid metal or sampling the solid metal (i.e., ingot) and measuring composition and gas content.
A high-heat-retention ladle capable of obviating the melting of aluminum in the casting can be used. Specifically, the high-heat-retention ladle can be used to carry or purchase aluminum raw material in a molten metal (i.e., molten aluminum) state from the aluminum alloying plant, which is located an intermediate or long distance away. In this case, however, it is difficult to integrally manage the molten metal since a purchasing party has difficulties in confirming the quality of the molten metal and pieces of data about related processing are handled separately.
The information disclosed in this Background of the Invention section is only for the enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and should not be taken as an acknowledgment or any form of suggestion that this information forms a prior art that would already be known to a person skilled in the art.